I'm not sure if my problem completely relates to this discussion but I'm hoping someone can help me.

I have a problem with installers (with .pkg extensions) that come from Apple. For example, I downloaded the iSync Palm Conduit from the Apple Support web site yesterday. The disk image mounted and two items were shown: one item called iSync_Palm.pkg and the other a read-me text file.

Normally, I should be able to double click on the .pkg file and it launches as an installer. But on my iMac, clicking on the item reveals another folder called Content. And clicking on that reveals five more items inside.

For some reason, my iMac is not recognizing the .pkg item as an installer. Using Get Info shows the item as a plain ol' folder and not an installer as well.

I spent almost an hour with an AppleCare tech yesterday and trashed a bunch of plist and preferences files but nothing changed. We even repaired disk permissions and also tried the procedure using a different account. All unsuccessful attempts.

I'm running 10.3.9 on a flat-screen iMac 700 MHz. My last resort is re-install OS X and I want to explore other options before taking on that task.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.